Berlin's Republic: Parliamentary government in a German land

Berlin is the only German Land that has had to manage its own reunification and originally many hoped that it would turn into a model for east–west reconciliation. Yet 15 years later there is widespread consensus that Berlin failed to live up to the challenges of the time and adequately deal with the consequences of reunification. Instead of embarking on structural reforms Berlin produced its own version of a Reformstau. The article describes and examines some basic features of the party system in Berlin and the Berlin polity. It will thus give an answer to the question as to how unification affected the institutional setting in this Land. Overall it will be shown that the Reformstau in Berlin cannot be explained by a fragmented political system or powerful veto players. Political stagnation in Berlin rather was due to the combined effects of party system change, institutional stagnation, and constitutionally inhibited political leadership.     

Lightning Strike as Probable Cause of Death and Determining Identity Based on the Examination of Skeletal Remains

In this article , a case of examining an incomplete human skeleton found in a forest is presented. Based on the assessment of posttraumatic lesions in the skull bones, the cause of death of a man who had died 14 years prior to the examination was determined with high probability to be due to a lightning strike. Moreover, the rare pathological lesions within the skeleton, such as a healed fracture of the humerus and rheumatoid malformations within the hand, in reference to preserved medical records, have also allowed to identify the deceased. Most noteworthy points in this case are, however, initially difficult to comprehend, posttraumatic lesions within the bones of the skull such as carbonization and fracture of the vertex. Their origin can be explained by a lightning strike as the most probable cause of death. Thus, the presented case demonstrates probable cause of death and identity can be established many years after death, based on skeletal remains.     

Fixers as Shadow “Public Servants”: A Case Study of Israel

Fixers can thrive in any level of political, bureaucratic, or institutional development. Paradoxically the academic research of the phenomenon of fixers is in its infancy. There exists no accepted definition of fixers; the boundaries between fixers and lobbyists remain murky, in terms of comparative administration only limited knowledge about the forces that breed different types of fixers in different political settings is available; and no deductive theory was articulated that might determine when and how fixing might become dysfunctional and corruptive. In an attempt to better understand the phenomenon of fixers more theoretically; this study analyzes fixers in view of three theories of bureaucratic corruption, and in view of the emerging theory of alternative politics. Using Israel as a case in point, the study shows that within certain national and local branches of government fixers not only create a shadow copy of official institutions, but also foster institutional corruption.     

The Supply Side of Second-Order Elections: Comparing German National and European Election Manifestos

The second-order character of past European elections is a well-established hypothesis with respect to voter turnout and voting behaviour. This paper presents a conceptual framework for testing this hypothesis on the supply side of European elections. It includes three groups of indicators allowing for the comparison of national and European election manifestos to determine the latter's second-order nature: (1) resource allocation, measured by the number of actors involved in manifesto adoption and by the manifestos' length; (2) the manifestos' content, comparing issue congruence and framing; and (3) political competition, measured by the ideological distance between manifestos. Building on this, we analyse the manifestos of all relevant German parties in the 2009 European and national elections using Comparative Manifesto Project data as well as original, self-created data on election manifestos. We find major variations between parties which can neither be explained by government participation nor satisfaction with the European Union.     

Rejoinder to Adam Fforde

Abstract

The issue of scholarship regarding Asian socialist countries is by no means a new one. This has faced China scholars for a long time. The difficulties of gaining access to these countries, assessing information from elusive sources, and gathering data are common to all scholars of countries like China, Korea, and Vietnam. Of course, research conditions are less than ideal. Vietnam, Korea and China are to a large extent closed societies, even if we speak their languages. However, as I stated in the beginning of my article, my present purpose is to raise issues that I think should be discussed, and not to do an original piece based on anthropological fieldwork. But more than this, it seems to me that given the limited commentary on socialist states as Vietnam, any new issues that come up should be given wider currency. And this was another major purpose of my article—to bring to readers of the Bulletin new debates which have focused on Vietnam, specifically in French academic circles, among a number of Vietnamese economists and historians. It was in the context of these debates that I focus on selected issues and offer some judgments of my own.     

Twelve-locus Y-STR haplotypes in the Flemish population

POPULATION: One hundred and thirteen unrelated Flemish men from Belgium.     

Literatur

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